Reflections on 'The Six Counterintuitive Rules' - 2

RULE #2: DON’T TRY TO CREATE ROBOTS. FOCUS ON MANAGING THE WHAT, NOT THE HOW.

Generally speaking, high-performing teams are not made up of robots. They’re made up of humans who are able to independently meet a goal. It’s just a huge amount of wasted energy to try to create robots out of humans.
You often see people trying to direct their team in terms of exactly how they would have done it. I see so many managers getting really bogged down in the literal process that someone is going through in order to achieve a goal. But at the end of the day, there’s only one thing that matters: Did they achieve the goal?
The best managers set expectations at the “what” level, not the “how” level.

Inspiration 2：Set expectation at the “What” and Avoid “Micromanager”

When it comes to selecting and hiring people, I used to prefer individuals who have similar personalities or work methods to my own. However, in doing so, I overlooked the types of people needed to achieve our goals. Subconsciously, I tend to resist people whose ideas differ greatly from my own. One reason for this is that I lack confidence in working with such individuals and am unsure whether they can complete tasks effectively. Another reason is that I worry about managing such individuals and lack confidence in my own management abilities.

I have a tendency to micromanage, especially when it comes to product design. I can’t tolerate colleagues who have significantly different ideas from my own, which causes everyone to feel apprehensive and indecisive when it comes to proposing design solutions. Looking back, I realize that my own growth came from learning from my mistakes, and I thought I was doing my colleagues a favor by being overly controlling, but in reality, I was depriving them of the opportunity to grow. By focusing too much on “how to do things,” it’s challenging to cultivate their ability to identify “what should be done.” Essentially, I am creating robots rather than encouraging creativity and independent thinking among my team. I need to trust my colleagues more and give them the freedom to propose new ideas and make mistakes.

To Be Continue…